Contract with God aka The Moses Expedition

9

VATICAN CITY

Friday, 7 July 2006. 8:29 p.m.

The knock at the door startled Brother Cesáreo. Nobody came down to the crypt, not only because access was restricted to a very few people, but also because it was damp and unhealthy, despite the four dehumidifiers that hummed constantly in each corner of the enormous space. Pleased to have company, the old Dominican friar smiled as he opened the security door, standing on tiptoe to embrace his visitor.

‘Anthony!’

The priest smiled and embraced the smaller man.

‘I was in the neighbourhood…’

‘I swear by God, Anthony, how did you manage to get this far? This place has been monitored by cameras and security alarms for some time now.’

‘There’s always more than one entrance if you take your time and know the way. You taught me, remember?’

The old Dominican massaged his goatee with one hand and patted his large belly with the other, laughing heartily. Under the streets of Rome was a system of more than three hundred miles of tunnels and catacombs, some of them over two hundred feet beneath the city. It was a veritable museum, a maze of winding, unexplored passages that linked almost every part of the city, including the Vatican. Twenty years earlier, Fowler and Brother Cesáreo had dedicated their spare time to exploring those dangerous and intricate tunnels.

‘It looks like Cirin will have to revisit his flawless security system. If an old dog like you can slip in here… But why not use the front door, Anthony? I hear that you’re no longer persona non grata with the Holy Office. And I’d love to know why.’

‘Actually, now I may be a little too grata for some people’s taste.’

‘Cirin wants you back in, doesn’t he? Once that low-rent Machiavelli gets his teeth into you, he doesn’t let go easily.’

‘And old guardians of relics can be stubborn too. Especially when speaking of things they’re not supposed to know about.’

‘Anthony, Anthony. This crypt is the best kept secret in our tiny country, but its walls echo with rumours.’ Cesáreo waved his arms at the surroundings.

Fowler looked up. The ceiling of the crypt, supported by stone arches, was black from the smoke of the millions of candles that had illuminated the space for almost two thousand years. In recent times, however, a modern electrical system had replaced the candles. The rectangular space was roughly two hundred and fifty feet square, part of which had been hewn from the living rock by pickaxe. On the walls, from ceiling to floor, were doors that concealed niches containing the remains of various saints.

‘You’ve spent too much time breathing in this horrible air, and it certainly doesn’t help your clients either,’ said Fowler. ‘Why are you still down here?’

It was a little known fact that for the past seventeen hundred years in every Catholic church, no matter how humble, a relic from a saint had been hidden in the altar. And this site housed the largest collection of such relics in the world. Some of the niches were almost empty, containing only small fragments of bone, while in others the whole skeleton was intact. Each time a church was built anywhere in the world, a young priest would pick up a steel suitcase from Brother Cesáreo and travel to the new church to deposit the relic inside the altar.

The old historian took off his glasses and wiped them with the hem of his white habit.

‘Security. Tradition. Stubbornness,’ said Cesáreo in answer to Fowler’s question. ‘The words that define our Holy Mother the Church.’

‘Excellent. Besides the damp, this place reeks of cynicism.’

Brother Cesáreo tapped the screen of his powerful Mac book Pro on which he had been writing when his friend arrived.

‘Locked in here are my truths, Anthony. Forty years of work cataloguing bone fragments. Have you ever sucked on an ancient bone, my friend? It’s an excellent method for determining if a bone is fake, but it leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. After four decades I’m no closer to the truth than when I started.’ He sighed.

‘Well, maybe you can go into that hard disk and give me a hand, old man,’ Fowler said as he handed Cesáreo a photo.

‘Always the business at hand, always-’

The Dominican stopped in mid-sentence. For a moment he stared myopically at the photograph, and then went over to the desk where he worked. From a pile of books he pulled out an old volume in classical Hebrew that was covered in pencil marks. He leafed through it, checking various symbols against the book. Startled, he looked up.

‘Where did you get this, Anthony?’

‘From an ancient candle. A retired Nazi had it.’

‘Camilo Cirin sent you to recover it, didn’t he? You have to tell me everything. Don’t leave out a single detail. I need to know!’

‘Let’s say I owed Camilo a favour and I agreed to carry out one last mission for the Holy Alliance. He asked me to find an Austrian war criminal who had stolen the candle from a Jewish family in 1943. The candle was covered with layers of gold and the man had had it since the war. A few months ago I caught up with him and retrieved the candle. After melting the wax, I discovered the copper sheet that you see in the photo.’

‘Don’t you have a better one with a higher resolution? I can barely make out the script on the exterior.’

‘It was rolled up too tightly. If I had completely unrolled it, I could have damaged it.’

‘It’s a good thing you didn’t. What you would have ruined is priceless. Where is it now?’

‘I turned it over to Cirin and didn’t really give it much thought. I figured someone at the Curia wanted it. Then I went back to Boston, convinced that I had repaid my debt-’

‘That’s not quite true, Anthony,’ a calm, unemotional voice interjected. The owner of the voice had managed to slip into the crypt like a master spy, which was exactly what the squat, plain-faced man dressed in grey was. Sparing of word and gesture, he concealed himself behind a wall of chameleon-like insignificance.

‘It’s bad manners to enter a room without knocking, Cirin,’ said Cesáreo.

‘It’s also bad manners not to respond when summoned,’ said the Chief of the Holy Alliance, staring at Fowler.

‘I thought we were done. We agreed on a mission – only one.’

‘And you’ve carried out the first part: recovering the candle. Now you have to make sure that what it contains is used correctly.’

Annoyed, Fowler didn’t answer.

‘Maybe Anthony would appreciate his assignment more if he understood its importance,’ Cirin continued. ‘As you now know what we’re dealing with, Brother Cesáreo, would you be so kind as to tell Anthony what that photo you’ve never seen depicts?’

The Dominican cleared his throat.

‘Before I do so, I need to know if it’s authentic, Cirin.’

‘It is.’

The friar’s eyes lit up. He turned to Fowler.

‘This, my friend, is a treasure map. Or to be precise, half of one. That is, if my memory doesn’t fail me, because it has been many years since I held the other half in my hands. This is the piece that was missing from the Copper Scroll of Qumran.’

The priest’s expression darkened considerably.

‘You’re telling me-’

‘Yes, my friend. The most powerful object in History can be found through the meaning of these symbols. And all the problems that come with it.’

‘Good Lord. And it has to show up at this precise moment.’

‘I’m glad you finally understand, Anthony,’ Cirin broke in. ‘Compared with this, all the relics that our good friend keeps in this room are nothing more than dust.’

‘Who put you on the trail, Camilo? Why now, after all this time, did you try to find Dr Graus?’ asked Brother Cesáreo.

‘The information came from one of the Church’s benefactors, a Mr Kayn. A benefactor from another faith and a great philanthropist. He needed us to find Graus, and personally offered to finance an archaeological expedition should we could recover the candle.’

‘Where to?’

‘He hasn’t revealed the exact location. But we know the area. Al Mudawwara, Jordan.’

‘Great, then there’s nothing to worry about,’ Fowler interrupted. ‘Do you know what’s going to happen if anyone gets even a sniff of this? Nobody on that expedition will live long enough to lift a shovel.’

‘Let’s hope you’re wrong. We’re going to send an observer with the expedition: you.’

Fowler shook his head. ‘No.’

‘You’re aware of the consequences, the ramifications.’

‘My answer is still no.’

‘You can’t refuse.’

‘Try stopping me,’ said the priest, heading for the door.

‘Anthony, my boy.’ The words followed him as he walked towards the exit. ‘I’m not saying I’m going to try to stop you. You must be the one who decides to go. Luckily, over the years, I’ve learned how to deal with you. I had to recall the only thing you value more than your freedom, and I found the perfect solution.’

Fowler stopped, still with his back to them.

‘What have you done, Camilo?’

Cirin took a few steps towards him. If there was anything he disliked more than talking, it was raising his voice.

‘In speaking to Mr Kayn, I suggested the best reporter for his expedition. Actually, as a reporter she’s fairly average. And not too pretty, or sharp, or even overly honest. In fact, the only thing that makes her interesting is that once you saved her skin. How do you say it – she owes you her life? So now you won’t be making a dash to hide yourself in the nearest soup kitchen, because you know the risk she’s running.’

Still Fowler didn’t turn around. With each of Cirin’s words, his hand had begun closing a little more until it was clenched in a fist, his fingernails digging into his palm. But the pain wasn’t enough. He slammed his fist into one of the niches. The impact made the crypt shake. The wooden door of the ancient resting place splintered and a bone from the desecrated vault rolled out onto the floor.

‘St Soutiño’s kneecap. Poor man, he limped his entire life,’ said Brother Cesáreo, bending down to pick up the relic.

Fowler, by now resigned, finally turned to face them.